I have finished my story.
It is called Cat-Sick Yellow And The Urban Wars, and I have enjoyed writing it so much that I forgot my breakfast.
There are no urban wars in it, I just liked the assonance too much to surrender it.
I remembered the breakfast in the end, at which point I was too hungry to organise any, and wolfed down a slab of dry cheese, some ancient prawn crackers left over from when Elspeth visited about three weeks ago, a cornflake cake and a couple of dubious prawns.
I hope they were all right.
The day started with a long and contemplative walk over the fell this morning. The sun was shining and the day clear, by which I mean that I could see the lake at the bottom of the valley. This sounds tranquil, but it was not, because roughly every thirty seconds the air was shattered by jets from RAF Lossiemouth blasting through, practising for when Europe invades the Ukraine before Putin does. If you are watching for them you have to look some distance in front of where the sound is coming from, because they are going really fast.
I am glad I am not an enemy of our glorious United Kingdom. I would not like to be facing down one of those in an alley armed only with an AK47 and some lines from the Koran tucked in my shoe.
Apart from listening to our preparations for international annihilation, I was busily considering my story, so much so that I was actually quite surprised to discover that I was almost home, and even more surprised, after a quick check, to discover that I still had two dogs. I was bursting to carry on, and rushed home in the greatest of excitement.
It is, as I explained, finished, and I had a hasty dash around the rest of my responsibilities, well, my actual responsibilities really. It was too late to make fudge, that will have to wait until we get back, but I made some dinner to take with us to Scotland tonight, and swept the kitchen.
I might not get any marks for it on the course, though. When I checked with the website there was a stern note from the tutor, reminding us that it is an excellent discipline for all writers to write to a word count, and that our pieces MUST NOT exceed five hundred words.
I have checked. Mine has gone over by five thousand, one hundred and forty one words, I wonder if she will notice.
I suppose I could leave off the title.
